The Polies are packing their bags and moving house

March 5 2003By Sandra BlakesleeAmundsen-Scott South Pole Station Antarctica

Everyone there knows it is time to replace the old station. It was built to house just 33 people.

The "Polies", as they call themselves, are getting a new home. Residents of the South Pole - astronomers, chemists, technicians, cooks, construction workers - are carrying their possessions 80 metres across snow and ice, bidding farewell to the windowless geodesic dome that has served for three decades as a base for polar exploration.

Now they are taking up residence in a huge enclosure on stilts that resembles a windowed economy motel. When the new station is finished, the dome will be broken up and shipped to aluminium scrap yards.

Everyone there knows it is time to replace the old station. It was built to house just 33 people. Scientific research at the pole has become so important that the United States' National Science Foundation, which oversees polar programs, has committed $US133 million ($A216 million) to build the new station, which can house, feed, entertain and support a team of 200.

Still, reactions to the move are mixed. "I think the dome is amazing," said Shayne Clausson, a computer network technician from San Francisco. "Working and living in some place this remote, this bizarre, it's only fitting that your habitat should resemble the set of some 1970s sci-fi thriller."

Of the 60 who plan to stay through the Antarctic winter, which starts mid-February and lasts six months, Clausson is one of 20 who have chosen to remain in the old station. ");document.write("

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But Andrew Logan, a computer network administrator from Bailey Island, Maine, is moving into the new station where he will have a private room with a window. He can't wait to watch spectacular auroras, perhaps from the comfort of his bed.

Monique Gerbex, a work order scheduler, will be monitoring maintenance work in unfinished parts of the new station, where work never stops and ingenuity is a job requirement. Life at the South Pole engenders powerful emotions. It is the most remote inhabited place on Earth. Communication with the outside world is possible only 10 hours a day, when satellites skim the horizon. In summer the sun twirls high overhead, 24 hours a day. In winter, the sun vanishes completely for four months.

The new station rises from the ice like a shiny spaceship. Atop 36 columns, it is composed of two C-shaped pods connected by a walkway. Eventually it will enclose 6400 square metres of heated space, including offices, laboratories, a clinic, a kitchen, a volleyball court, a band room and private living quarters for nearly every resident.